A Dime A Dozen
by TheNextFolchart
Summary: It isn't until she's actually boarding the R.M.S. Titanic that Lily Evans realizes her life is over. / Titanic!AU for my Secret Santa, Phoebe.


**A Dime A Dozen**

_For Phoebe. Merry Christmas, Secret Santa!_

* * *

It isn't until she's actually boarding the _R.M.S. Titanic _that she realizes her life is over.

"Lily," says her fiancé as they step off the dock and onto the gangplank. "Are you well?"

She looks up at him and offers her best attempt at a smile. The ring on her left hand has never felt heavier. "Fine," she says, except she isn't fine, she's _dying_, they're pulling out into the ocean and the people on the dock are cheering and she has the sudden urge to _jump_, because that's her life fading into the distance, that's seventeen years of memories disappearing behind her, and every instinct in her body is telling her to go back, go back, go back.

"Are you certain?" he asks, letting his hand dangle loosely around her tightly corseted waist (she wishes he would hold her more tightly, as if she were something worth holding onto, but he's far too timid for that and by now she knows better than to hope).

"Seasick," she says lightly, and he doesn't call her bluff.

(She told her mother she could learn to love him.)

"I'm going to see how the stateroom is coming," he says, turning his sharp body toward the stairs and looking at her expectantly, but she doesn't move (she can be strong, even if he can't) and so he walks away without her. She watches him go from the corner of her eye; his dark hair is flattened against his head, slicked back in that oily fashion that everyone thinks is stylish but Lily herself finds unattractive, and she has to remind herself that _Severus_ _isn't like this on purpose._

None of this is on purpose, come to think of it. It's a series of accidents—one tragic roll of the dice after another, and it's led her here, to a ring and a ship and a man she doesn't love. She wonders what her father would say, if he were alive. She wonders whether he would have made her uproot her life like this. She wonders whether he would have _noticed_, or whether he would have been too wrapped up in his booze to hear her

(She doesn't let herself think about that for long.)

"Don't you want to see the stateroom?" asks a familiar voice, and Lily turns to find her sister beside her.

Lily shakes her head.

"Neither do I," Petunia admits, leaning against the railing and gazing at the receding dock.

"Severus is down there," Lily says after a moment, and Petunia heaves a sigh.

"He's your husband, Lily—"

"_Fiancé._"

"Your _fiancé_, then, but he's going to be your husband someday, and you can't avoid him forever."

(She wonders what would happen if she let the ring slide off her finger and sink into the ocean.)

"Where's your husband-to-be?" Lily asks.

"In the stateroom. With Severus." Petunia puts a gentle hand on Lily's elbow. "They sent me up to fetch you."

"I don't want to be fetched." The dock is a speck in the distance. It's her last chance to jump.

Petunia's grip tightens slightly. "I don't like this any more than you do, Lily, but we don't have a choice. There's no money left. Without this wedding, we're as good as dead."

"We're already as good as dead." She's leaning over the edge, looking at the water, wondering how cold it is, wondering whether she'll die on impact. . . .

"_Lily_."

. . . wondering whether it will hurt more to drown, or to marry a man she doesn't love. . . .

"Lily Evans, look at me."

(The dock is gone.)

Lily's green eyes meet her sister's brown ones. "I'm not going to jump," she says dully.

Petunia puts her other hand on Lily's shoulder, and it's almost comforting. "We'll be okay. Come to the stateroom, we'll find you something to drink."

(_Drink yourself to death, Lily, like your father did. Drown yourself in the sea or in the wine—it doesn't matter, you're dead either way._)

"Something to drink would be nice," Lily says, and she lets Petunia lead her toward the stairs, and neither of them notice the dark-haired boy with the glasses who has been watching Lily Evans for quite some time.

* * *

"I'm telling you, Sirius," says James Potter, "I feel like the king of the bloody world."

The boy called Sirius snorts. "Romanticizing it a bit, eh, Prongs?" he says, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the doors lining the third-class hallway. "Some world."

James seizes his friend by the shoulders. "No, mate, this is a new beginning for us. A new start. Away from our pasts. Away from Hogwarts, with its stuffy rules."

"Away from your police record, you mean," Sirius says, and James laughs.

"Away from that, too."

Sirius runs his hand through his hair. "I'm sorry to leave, if you want to know the truth."

"Are you?" James starts up a staircase, and Sirius follows. "I'm not. Good riddance to all of it."

"Good riddance to _most_ of it," Sirius says. "I'm going to miss . . . certain parts of Hogwarts."

A rush of cool air hits them as they break up onto the main deck. "Certain parts?" James says with a grin. "Or certain broads?"

Sirius looks sheepish, but he doesn't answer.

"Marlene McKinnon?" James guesses, and he takes Sirius' silence as a confirmation. "Girls like her are a dime a dozen in America."

"Easy for you to say," Sirius says as he leans against the railing and spits into the ocean. "You've never been in love."

James snorts—but his friend is right, he's never been in love with a girl and he's never kissed a girl and the only girl he's ever been alone with, really, is Professor McGonagall back at Hogwarts, and that was only because he had detention, and sometimes he wonders whether there's something wrong with him.

"I'm waiting for the right girl," he says, and that's when he spots Lily Evans.

(He doesn't know it's Lily Evans, not yet—he won't find out her name until later—but he spots her, he sees her teeter on the edge, as if she's going to fall or jump or let the wind carry her away into the sky, and something about her makes his heart leap into his throat, because this girl has a terrible _sadness _in her green eyes, and for reasons he can't understand he desperately wants to fix her.)

"Do you know her?" Sirius asks when he catches James staring (because how can he _help _staring, she's breaking his heart without even trying).

James shakes his head. "No."

"D'you . . . Prongs, are you going to vomit?"

Another shake of the head, although he isn't sure whether he's being entirely honest about that one.

Another girl comes out and grabs Lily Evans by the arm. They walk away together, toward a staircase that goes God-knows-where (James only knows it doesn't lead to steerage), and they disappear.

Sirius is laughing. "What the _hell_ was that?"

James shrugs. His eyes stay glued to the staircase. "She looked sad."

"She looked _rich_."

"Did she?"

"There was a diamond the size of Manhattan on her finger, Prongs."

"Oh." He hadn't noticed her finger. He'd only noticed those eyes.

Sirius claps him on the shoulder. "Girls are a dime a dozen in New York," he reminds his friend, and then he leans over the railing to spit again.

* * *

"Are you certain you're feeling well?" Severus asks her at dinner, and even though she nods, he doesn't believe her.

Because he's known Lily Evans since they were ten years old, and that's long enough for him to be able to read her face, which is arranged in a careful mask of polite boredom—but he's learned how to look beyond delicate frowns and carefully arched eyebrows, and it's her eyes that give her away.

(He knows she's never loved him. He knows her mother _made_ her take his ring.)

"Try the soup," he says, and she declines, and in her eyes he sees repulsion.

And he doesn't know _why_, can't figure out when things changed, because they used to sit up late in the tree outside Severus' window and talk about their dreams while they watched the stars fade and the sun rise; they used to hold hands in the park and toss bread to the ducks in the pond.

Once she had seized his face in both hands and kissed him as if her life depended on it, but neither of them ever spoke of that again.

It must have been when her father died, Severus reasons, because that's when the money trouble started, and that's when her mother started talking about marrying off her girls. The late Mr. Evans was warm and generous and he _loved _his daughters but he didn't love his wife, and it ripped his family apart at the seams. Once Lily had come to Severus' window with tears in her eyes and said she was never going to get married, not _ever_, not to _anyone_, because she didn't want to cry herself to sleep like her mother.

(He had pulled her into his arms and rocked her all night, and that was when she had kissed him.)

"No soup?" Severus asks, putting the bowl in front of her anyway.

She looks at him sharply. "I said no."

He runs a hand over her slicked-back hair and tries not to look defeated.

Or maybe defeated isn't the right word for it—maybe he feels _rejected_, or _hurt_, or _frustrated_, or _at the end of his rope_, because all he wants on God's green Earth is to make Lily Evans happy, but her eyes stay sad and there is nothing nothing _nothing _he can do.

"I'm sorry," he starts quietly, but she's already standing, she's putting her napkin on the table and saying something about going for a walk, and he's left alone with a full bowl of soup.

* * *

She has a splitting headache.

The fresh air on the deck is cold but welcome. The stars overhead shine brilliantly, like cold, faraway icebergs spread across an inky sea, and the wind tugs through her hair and chills her skin. Severus' voice pounds in her skull; _I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry._

_I'm sorry too, Sev._

She walks to the edge and grips the frigid railing and leans over to look at the waves.

(They're black like the sky, and she wonders whether jumping will feel like falling or like flying.)

She's leaning farther, farther, farther, hooking one leg over the side, and then the other, daring herself to do it, because _you are dead either way, Lily, you can die in the sea or you can die in Sev's arms, and one is warmer but the other is quicker, and you're never going home. . . ._

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

She whips her head around, heart in her throat.

There is a boy with messy dark hair and glasses watching her from the other side of the deck.

"James," he says when it becomes evident that she isn't going to say anything. "James Potter." He takes a careful step toward her. "Pardon me, Miss, because it may be none of my business, but I couldn't help noticing that you were about to jump."

Lily narrows her eyes and finds her voice. "You're right," she says. Her grip on the railing has gone numb. "It _is _none of your business."

James keeps his eyes locked on hers. "Please don't let go," he says softly.

(And she wants to listen to him, because there is honesty in those brown eyes of his, she can see it even from here—but more than that, there is _courage_, there is _bravery_, and there is the _tiniest hint of fear_.)

It's that fear that makes her ask. "Why not?"

"Because then I'll have to go in after you," James says without missing a beat. "And that water looks cold, and I'd rather not have to do it."

He takes another step toward her, and she cries, "Don't come any closer," and she _means _it, because she has already made up her mind (hasn't she?), this death is preferable to the other, and a little fear in some stranger's eyes is not enough to make her want to live.

James raises his hands in surrender and takes a step backwards. "Okay. I'm staying here." He leans against the railing, still ten yards away from her. "Have you ever heard of Hogwarts? The boarding school?"

She has, and she tells him so.

"Well, there's this giant lake at Hogwarts," he says (and he's still meeting her eyes, and that fear is still there, and _why is a stranger afraid for her_?), "and in the winter, my friend Sirius and I decided to go ice fishing."

She eyes him carefully. "So?"

"So the ice was a little thin, and I fell right through, into that freezing cold water—just as cold as that water down there." He gestures to the sea below them. "And let me tell you, it hits you like a thousand knives, that cold. You can't breathe. You can't think about anything but the pain." He glances over the side and shudders. "Which is why I'm not looking forward to coming in there after you."

Lily isn't expecting the laugh that breaks through her lips.

"I'm kind of hoping you'll come back over the railing," James says, still with his hands in the air, "and get me off the hook."

Lily looks at him for a long moment. "You're crazy."

He shrugs. "With all due respect, Miss, I'm not the one hanging over the back of a ship."

Another laugh, and then suddenly she's sobbing, and she has no idea why, so she lets the boy called James come closer, lets him take her by the hands and help her back over the railing, and then she's wrapped up in his arms while he maneuvers her to a bench and pulls off his coat so he can wrap it around her shivering body.

"James Potter," he says again, pulling her head into his chest and rubbing his thumb along her shoulder. "And you are?"

"Lily Evans," she whispers through her tears, and she has never felt so exhausted in her life (but there is also a thrill coursing through her veins, and her skin is hot where he's touching her, and she can't get those eyes out of her thoughts).

"It's a pleasure to save your life, Lily Evans," he says, and for the third time Lily finds herself laughing without intending to.

* * *

And saving her life is the greatest thing he's ever done, because suddenly she's _everywhere_, she's in his room and in his arms and in his head, and he doesn't know what he's doing—neither of them do—but Sirius keeps calling him _Romeo _and Lily keeps calling him _Love _and it's been two days, two bloody days and they're already having midnight conversations about all the ways she's going to leave her fiancé, and James has never been in love but he thinks it may be time to change that.

"I can sell the ring in New York," Lily says one night as she lounges across his bed with her head on his chest, and he's kissing her face, her neck, her shoulders, he isn't sure how things escalated to this point but he's never felt happier in his life and he whispers that he loves her to the skin on the insides of her wrists. "I can run away from Sev, sell the ring, meet you in Manhattan. . . ."

And girls may be a dime a dozen, but this one is worth every penny he doesn't have, and there's a constant fear in his eyes because he knows someday he's going to lose her—because what could _possibly _convince a girl like her to stay with a man like him?

"We can get a cozy little flat," Lily is saying dreamily.

(That's when the boat lurches, and they tumble out of bed.)

"What was _that_?" she asks, and James doesn't know, so he kisses her hard on the floor and tells her they'll go find out together and begs her not to let go of his hand.

(It's the beginning of the end, and a piece of him knows it.)

* * *

When the lifeboats pull out into the black waves, Severus looks around and begins to _panic_.

Because there's Petunia, and there's Vernon, and there's the maid with the antique painting and the expensive jewelry—but there isn't any Lily, he hasn't seen her since this morning when she went to take another one of her walks (and she always tells him she's going up for fresh air, but she always comes back smelling like steerage, and he knows she's cheating because _like father like daughter_, but he lets her get away with it because _as long as she's happy_).

"Lily?" he calls, but the only answer is the screams of the passengers who didn't make it off the sinking ship.

"Where is she?" he hears Petunia ask. "Lily? Lily!"

And maybe she doesn't love him, but she kissed him once, and that kiss she gave is _never _going to fade away, he can still feel it on his lips as if it happened moments ago, and as he looks out over the wreckage he realizes that he will never get another kiss from that particular girl.

(More screams from the _Titanic_, and Severus has never felt this cold before in his life.)

* * *

The ship disappears beneath the surface, and that's when Lily knows she's dead.

"I didn't mean to," she says over and over, and James grabs onto a floating board and helps her climb onto it so she'll stay out of the knife-wielding waves. "I didn't mean to, James, I swear."

"Didn't mean to what?" he asks through chattering teeth.

(Maybe they're both dead.)

"To end up in the water," she says, and she's _laughing_, of all things, because that's what she _does _around James, she laughs without meaning to, and if she dies laughing then at least she dies happy. "Remember? You t-told me not t-to jump."

(Cold, cold, too cold, _don't stop laughing_.)

He laughs, too, and squeezes her hands. "This isn't how I planned on losing you," he says.

"I'm right here," she says fiercely, because she knows what he means and she hates him for saying it.

"You're going to make it through this," he promises, and there's that fear in his eyes again, there's that fear she saw for the first time only two days ago, back when the danger wasn't real, back when she thought she was never going to _love _anyone.

"You're coming with me," she says, and he nods (she can tell he's lying) and he presses shaking lips to her knuckles (_keep laughing_) and he says he loves her over and over and over until he is gone.

* * *

When it's all over, she goes to Manhattan to sell the diamond ring.

She puts down rent in a flat in New York City, and when the baby arrives nine months later she names him Harry (after her father) and James (after his own father). The baby has James' hair and nose and ears and chin—but he doesn't get James' eyes, and Lily's grateful for it, because she doesn't ever want to see that fear again.

She never goes back to London—can't even look at a ship for years and years—and it isn't until Harry is nearly a grown-up himself that she can bring herself to talk about the _Titanic_.

"My life ended when I stepped on board that ship," she whispers to her son as he drifts off to sleep. "My whole life ended, and a new one began, and darling, I wouldn't have done it any other way."

With his eyes closed, Harry looks just like James.

(Lily's heart breaks, but all she can do is laugh.)

* * *

_[Secret Santa: for Phoebe—"Muggle AU before the 1930s with Jily"—I hope you enjoyed it, darling!]_

_[Battleship Challenge: C4—"This kiss you give is never ever going to fade away", for Kazavan]_

_[2015 New Years Millionaire Competition: Part of your OTP dying]_

_[Disney Character Competition: Alice—write about someone who goes on a journey that changes them]_

_[Greek Mythology Mega Prompt Competition: Rhea—write about Lily]_


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